


It

by phipiohsum475



Series: Serial Suicides [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen, Implied Johnlock, Post-Reichenbach, Suicide, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-03
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2018-02-15 23:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2248080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phipiohsum475/pseuds/phipiohsum475
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And despite what he later told anyone who asked, his last and final thoughts, before passing out, succumbing to the blackness, were “Thank God.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	It

**Author's Note:**

> Dark moods beget dark fics.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING - There is major depression and suicide in this fic. Please don't read if this bothers you. I like you, and I want you to be okay.
> 
> Not betaed nor britpicked. Feel free to (kindly!) point out my errors!

The first time John felt the urge, he was sixteen. Nothing spectacularly bad happened. He came from a happy home, got on with his parents, and Harry acted like any other older sister. Slightly haughty, pretending she knew the world so much better than him, despite only two extra years experience.

The urge was there all the same. He settled for injury instead. He didn’t cut, cutting was what girls did, those pale raven haired girls who wrote depressing poetry, wore blood in vials around their necks, and bared their scarred arms like trophies. John wondered if there were others like him, who didn’t want to be noticed, and therefore remained hidden in a sea of happy, but dramatic adolescents.

So he joined rugby. The constant, steady stream of bruises and sprains were dismissed as dedication and aggression, but John cherished them for the pain they allowed him, and no one ever seemed to notice how long it took him to heal.

It didn’t stifle the urge completely. He still thought about It, but he loved his parents, and their pain was worth more than his. So he suffered through the mental pain, dulled it with the physical pain, and went on.

-o-

The urge never really left, just oscillated. At a party in college, Matt, high out of his mind, explained his theory on the world. That everything small was a representation of something enormous. That connections of neurons in the brain resembled models of the universe’s evolution. That a nautilus shell resembled a hurricane resembled a galaxy. That the ups and downs of a single day resembled the ups and downs of a year, and of a life. “Random chance and fractals”, Matt giggled, “explain the world.”

John thought of that idea frequently. His life never seemed to reach the highs that others did, and his depths were far lower. Compared against himself, though; he could see it. Especially dark days were followed by lighter ones, as especially dark months gave way to better ones. Each day, each month, each year was a cycle. Ragged, random enough to defy prediction, but a beautiful pattern in its own right.

Some months, it was Harry that kept him afloat. They were something like friends, and her pain at losing him was more valuable than the pain he felt, so he stayed, didn’t given in to It. He still played rugby. No one noticed the burn marks from heated metal on flesh. The sewing needles that left two small reddened holes were hardly enough to garner attention.

-o-

John joined the military. He claimed it was to pay for his education, to help his fellow man, save lives, Queen and country, and any of the other excuses that fell from the recruiter’s lips. All lies. He joined to feed the urge. Dying in combat was honorable. Not a weak or a feeble or a selfish way to give in to It. The pain his parents, his sister might feel would be countered by pride, the support from their community overwhelming, the support for the family of a fallen solider.

He volunteered for front lines right away.

He got shot. And despite what he later told anyone who asked, his last and final thoughts, before passing out, succumbing to the blackness, were “ _Thank God_.”

-o-

He almost cried when he woke up in the hospital. His mask slipped and they saw. They assumed the loss of two careers, one medical, one military facilitated his distress. He didn’t bother correcting them. Then they sent him home, in a plane, not a box. They gave him a therapist.

He tried to stay with Harry, but somewhere along the way, the uni partying caught up with her. To watch her destroy herself filled him with such envy. They fought with vicious words, but John never said what he wanted, _Why do you get to kill yourself like this, when I can’t?_

He moved out after two weeks.

-o-

The bedsit almost did the trick. Beige upon beige. An empty room to compliment the emptiness of his chest. Any vividness of life that might have existed in the army, when any day could be his last, faded into shades of beige.

His parents had died. Both, while he spent years in Afghanistan. He tried even harder to die then, but he still ended up back in London.

He had a pension, a meager savings. Little things that Harry might want when he died. He scheduled an appointment with his solicitor, making the necessary arrangements so that Harry could avoid the inconvenience. He’d worry it’d drive her to drink, but she was already there, what was another?

He signed off on the most recent version of his will and walked home, thinking of the loving metallic touch of the gun in his desk drawer, when Mike Stamford called out his name.

-o-

The next eighteen months were magic. There was no doubt in his mind that his life had been leading to this moment. It was why he hadn’t given in to It at sixteen, at nineteen, twenty three, twenty eight, thirty two, and why he lived when shot. This was the apex of his life. Once Sherlock grew bored of him, it would all be downhill. John’s entire life was a serious of ups and downs, the jagged edge of mountain that slowly guided him, and Sherlock was the peak.

He was breathless with life. Seeing how life could be lived. He wondered if other people felt the enthusiasm in their lives that he felt with Sherlock. Did everyone feel this alive?

-o-

And then Sherlock jumped.

If Sherlock represented the summit of John’s life, then his death brought John to the cliff. John’s life wasn’t a mountain, with a gradual decline to madness, to It. No, Sherlock was the peak, the climax, and everything beyond Sherlock was a long drop and a sudden stop.

Though the pain of others had forced him to neglect his own in the past, this time was different. He wasn’t sure if he could convince himself that Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, Mycroft or Molly might care all that much. He was secondary to Sherlock. And that had been okay.

John loved Sherlock. He wasn’t sure if it was entirely platonic, potentially romantic. They’ve never crossed the platonic barrier, but John often wondered if they might. Sherlock called him a conductor of light, but had no idea that the title applied to him as well. He chased out John’s darkness, the hollowness of his chest, the deeply seated urge to give in to It. Sherlock was the light of John’s life.

And the light had been snuffed.

And John plunged into darkness once again.

-o-

He waited until the visits stopped. After a month, Lestrade stopped coming by. Mycroft never returned after John tore him apart with the most abusive language he could muster. Mrs Hudson doted, but didn’t come up much once she realized John didn’t have much to say to her anymore. Harry never called. Not once.

After one week with no human contact, John was ready. It was ready. He left in the cover of night and walked, the Browning at his back. He walked in the vague direction of the Thames, knowing that no matter what roads he took, he’d find his way there.

He climbed over the edge. He heard It beckoning. After almost twenty years, It was still with him, still begging for him. Joining It would be a reassurance, a comfort. Like going home. He looked down at the water, cold and frigid. He’d be dead before he hit the current. It’d be an easy mess to clean. Water to wash the blood away, a corpse bobbing up a few days later. Taken to the morgue, cremated, and given back to the earth from whence he came.

He felt the weight of the gun in his hand, the metal barrel cool against his temple, and without hesitance, he pulled the trigger.

-o-

If John had been alive to see the aftermath, he might have reconsidered the weight of his pain against the pain of others.

Lestrade was first on scene when the body was found. He wretched hard, losing the coffee and Thai he’d had for lunch, despite the relative cleanliness of the scene.

Donovan and Anderson stayed uncharacteristically silent.

Lestrade called Mycroft, whose stoic demeanor didn’t falter, but the minutes that he sat in silence, dumbfounded, revealed the depth of his distress to Anthea.

Mycroft arranged a flight to Gadamis. The news he had for Sherlock should be delivered in person.

Molly bawled so hard during the autopsy, another medical examiner had to be called in.

Sherlock crumbled; Mycroft caught him. They boarded a flight back to London.

-o-

Sherlock resurrected.

Lestrade punched him. Donovan ignored him. Molly burrowed into his chest, and they shed tears together. Ms Hudson made dozens of baked goods that covered every flat surface in the kitchen.

Harry spoke at the funeral.

If John had known.

If John had know that Harry knew. She spoke about the darkness he wrestled with, a secret he thought he’d kept. But she knew. She loved him. She didn’t know how much he loved Sherlock. She blamed herself.

Sherlock blamed himself. And Mycroft.

Lestrade blamed himself. And Sherlock.

-o-

Moriarty’s empire was significantly depleted. But after John’s death, Sherlock didn’t care so much anymore. He went back undercover, apathetically. He sought out the threats, day after day, week after week. Each day, he destroyed another piece of the web, hoping that today would be the day that It would come for him.


End file.
